CRIA, Canada's version of the RIAA, has long been a fan of levies. The Canadian government imposed these levies on blank media like CD-Rs and audio tapes back in the late 1990s, with the idea being that the money would go to artists whose work was being copied privately. But what exactly does the levy give consumers the right to do? Are they only allowed to make personal copies of music that they own, or does paying the levy mean that P2P downloading is legal in Canada?

It's on that tricky question that today's surprising news hinges. CRIA, which has pushed for the levies for years, is suddenly objecting to their extension to portable music players like the iPod. The organization has just filed papers in a Canadian federal appeals court that announce its intention to object to the proposed new levies. Why? Because CRIA fears that consumers would get the "wrong idea" from the payments and believe that they have the right to download music from the Internet. According to some authorities, though, that's precisely the right that they do have.

Law professor Michael Geist broke the story about CRIA's volte face. He tells Ars that, in the industry's mind, the private copying exception "only covers device shifting, the copying of your own music from CD to CD."

That's backed up by a comment in the recent CRIA filings on the matter, copies of which were seen by Ars Technica. CRIA tells a judge overseeing a lawsuit about the proposed new levies that the private copying exception granted by Parliament was "intended solely to permit an individual to make a second copy of a legitimately purchased copy of a sound recording (or musical work) for the person's private use." (CRIA did not respond to a request for further comment.)

The proposed levies, which would cover 2008-2009, slap a fee of CAN$0.29 on each CD-R sold, CAN$5 on each Memory Stick or SD card between 1GB and 4GB of memory, and an astounding CAN$75 on each "digital audio recorder" with over 30GB of space. In a finding earlier this year, "digital audio recorder" was construed to cover iPods and other digital audio players.

Should the levy be extended to audio players (with cell phones and computers possibilities in the future), CRIA worries that the decision "could be misconstrued to legalize downloading from unauthorized peer to peer (p2p) file sharing networks and other unauthorized and illegitimate sources."

Obviously, this isn't what the recording industry wants to see happen, so it is now fighting against the levy and turning down large government-mandated payments in order to avoid giving ammunition to downloaders. The CPCC, which collects the levies and distributes them, paid out more than $33 million last year alone.

But according to Geist, a series of decisions in the years since the levy was introduced have actually bolstered the claim that noncommercial downloading is legal in Canada (though this says nothing of uploading). His own view, he tells Ars, is that a good argument can be made that "downloading music for noncommercial purposes on P2P networks is lawful." In its recent filings, even CRIA seems to admit that this is what courts have decided, though they disagree with the interpretation.

The case likely won't be decided until next year, but it will hopefully offer Canadian consumers some clarity about what rights, exactly, they are purchasing with their levy payments.